PUBLISHED : 16 Feb 2024 at 04:00
Police are coordinating with Interpol to seek the arrest of two foreign men allegedly involved in the murder of a Myanmar businessman inside a luxury apartment in Bangkok.
The two men, who turned out to be Cameroonian nationals, not Scotsmen as earlier reported, are believed to have fled to Singapore with 5 million baht of the dead man’s money.
Police have now learned the identities of the two suspects. They are Robinson Saha, alias “William”, 32, and Viscio Delord Mamgaing Kam, or “John”, 36, both from Cameroon, said a police source.
The pair entered Thailand as tourists and stayed at an apartment in the Thung Mahamek area of Sathon district on Feb 10.
The suspects left an apartment room in Bangkok’s Sukhumvit area where a Myanmar businessman in his 50s was later found dead late on Tuesday night.
They returned to their apartment in Thung Mahamek and called a taxi to Don Mueang airport to board a flight to Singapore at about 5am on Wednesday.
The Myanmar businessman was found lying on the floor with bloody injuries to his face, ears and head inside the room on the 23rd floor of a condominium building on Soi Sukhumvit 4 in Klong Toey district when police arrived after being alerted about 11.30pm on Tuesday.
Police were coordinating with the embassy to seek an Interpol notice for the arrest of the two suspects, said a source.
Pol Maj Gen Noppasil Phoonsawat, deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Bureau, said a sole witness who claimed to be the foster mother of the slain Myanmar man told police via an interpreter that the suspects also assaulted her by strangling her until she lost consciousness.
A police investigation and CCTV footage showed there were four people in the victim’s apartment between 10.22pm-10.33pm on Tuesday. They were the victim, the witness, and the two suspects identified by the witness as John and William.
The footage also showed the witness leaving the elevator at 11pm to alert a security guard at the apartment, who then went to the room and found the Myanmar man’s body.
Police examining the room found two travel bags — one containing the victim’s documents and the other filled with a cloth bag and some pink powder used for making counterfeit money.
There was also a paper bag containing bundles of black paper like banknotes, according to the police investigation.
The witness told police the Myanmar man regularly visited Thailand. He had travelled back and forth between Bangkok and Yangon and Bangkok and Hanoi, some 52 times.
Police said they would check the victim’s business and coordinate with the Myanmar embassy about his personal records.
The investigation found the victim had stayed in the same apartment on Feb 7.
Police also said the witness was not one of his relatives.
Police will double-check her testimony to determine how much of it is reliable. She was to be sent to hospital for a health check-up as she claimed she had been assaulted and knocked unconscious.